Culture bias Flashcards
What is culture bias?
The act of interpreting and judging behaviour and the psychological characteristics of a culture by holding them to the standards of your own. This could be theories developed in one culture which are then applied inappropriately, and through biassed research methods which only uses participants who are not representative of all cultures.
What do cultural biases assume?
The behaviour of a certain society or culture is the norm, and that anything that differs is therefore abnormal.
What is ethnocentrism?
The tendency to use one ethnic group as a reference point for making judgements about other culture’s behaviour. This occurs when researchers assume their own culturally specific practises are natural. We may ignore the values of another society when interpreting research findings and any behaviour deviating from norms are abnormal rather than an accurate reflection of behaviour.
What is an etic approach?
Research is carried out across cultures in order to discover what elements of behaviour might be universal. Berry replicated Asch to see whether the conformity rates in the US were repeated among the Temne people of Sierra Leone or the Inuit of Canada. The first had high rates of conformity but the latter had low rates, and the difference was put down to alternative styles of living.
What is the problem of the etic approach?
We assume that behaviours are universal when they are not. This can lead to a researcher making an imposed etic as cultural differences are ignored. This refers to theories developed in one culture then applied to other cultures and judgements are made with inappropriate cultural reference points.
What is the emic approach?
Where one culture is studied in order to discover culture specific behaviour, and they will only generalise their findings to the culture they have been studying.
What is a problem of the emic approach?
It is very hard to get a true understanding of the culture if you are not a member of it, especially when carrying out experiments where there is limited contact, and usually in a small sample.
What is cultural relativism?
This is a belief that cultural norms and values derive their meaning within a specific social context, suggesting their is no global right or wrong. Therefore it is vital to examine the cultural context in which the behaviour is set.
How is cultural relativism important when considering psychological abnormality?
Definitions of abnormality cannot be applied universally - it must be considered in the context of the culture in which people come from to fully understand the true nature of disorders.
How can we reduce cultural bias?
Do not attempt to extrapolate findings to cultures that are not represented in the research sample.
Use researchers who are native to or familiar with the culture being investigated
Carry out cross cultural research rather than research with a sole culture.
CULTURAL BIAS - medically harmful?
Mental health manuals may alter the way cultures diagnose mental illness
Americanisation of mental health led to significant changes in how Japan viewed the symptoms of depression. Phenomena in Japan such as Koro are not included in the DSM 5, leading to the society to adopt more American norms.
This has effects on the accuracy of diagnosis as it rejects regional interpretations.
CULTURE BIAS - Ethnocentrism has led to Indigenous psychologies
This is the development of different groups of theories in different countries.
Afrocentrism proposes that all black people have their roots in Africa and psychological theories concerning such people must therefore be African centred.
This approach suggests that the culture of Europeans at worst devalue non-European people, and are at best irrelevant to the life of people of African descent.
CULTURE BIAS - Harmful consequences
US army IQ test showed that European immigrants scored below Americans and African americans were at the lowest end of the scale.
This has effect on the attitudes of Americans in terms of race, as well as restricting the military positions.
Means that researchers have the responsibility to recognise cultural bias within research
CULTURE BIAS - Cultural diversity may jeopardise establishing general laws of behaviour
Classification of people into groups based on diagnosis criteria such as DSM for SZ is intent on using general laws to explain behaviour.
The use of nomothetic laws mean that treatments will only be effective in smaller clusters of the world due to regional differences in behaviour.
Cultural diversity is not in line with nomothetic laws, so we should look at research that does not ignore these differences in order to enrich our knowledge.
